1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input/output control apparatus for efficiently controlling an image input apparatus such as a scanner and an image output apparatus such as a printer.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has conventionally been put to practical use an image processing apparatus called a composite appliance such as a copying machine or facsimile which is equipped with a combination of an image input apparatus such as a scanner and an image output apparatus such as a printer, or a computer system which is equipped with an image input apparatus and image output apparatus as separate component units. This image processing apparatus can freely perform processes such as input of an image, output of an image, and processing of a scanned image.
However, image data generally has a large data amount, and takes a long time to input/output the data. Even a composite appliance has only one passage for supplying data. If the apparatus is to execute processing of outputting scanned image data for display or the like while inputting an image, image data are sequentially scanned and output. Scanning and output of image data respectively take long times for image transfer.
Under these circumstances, when the composite appliance executes an operation of scanning an image and processing the image data, such as copying operation and electronic filing operation of an image, processing of outputting scanned image data and displaying it on a preview window inhibits the progress of processing for original operation. Since the requested original processing is inhibited, processing using input image data cannot be performed.
The status of each job executed by the composite appliance is displayed. In this case, since display of an image representing the job status and read/write of an image along with execution of the job are accompanied by data transfer, both or either of processes delays. If the display response characteristic of the job status is improved, execution of the job delays. If the job is preferentially executed, the job status cannot be immediately displayed.